


running till we're out of time

by pasdecoeur



Series: superbat works [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Identity Porn, M/M, that's it. it's just going to be 10k of bruce being a horny idiot.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-08-26 17:43:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: Bruce Wayne accidentally seduces Superman.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if you were wondering, the title is from ke$ha's 2012 bop, die young, just to cement how absolutely fantastically trashy i want this whole fic to be.

Bruce has heard, from several reliable sources, that when Superman does a rescue job, he does it _right._

 _(Heard_ is maybe stretching it. _Heard_ implies the cops talking about it at Gotham PD Central knew Batman was listening in.)

((They did not.))

Sure, if there’s a fifteen car pile-up or a building fire, an earthquake in Tunisia or a flash flood down the Gulf Coast - big, sudden, multiple casualty events - then it's different. Then the job’s all about dragging as many living bodies as he can out of the wreckage, then it's finding a clear path for rescue workers and medical teams to get to the victims. Then, the priorities are different.

But little things - kidnappings, violent assaults, pretty-reporter-strapped-to-a-bomb threats - things like that get Superman to stick around a while longer. Stay with the victim. Get them to a police station, or a hospital, or if they’re Lois Lane - and boy, they sure are Lois Lane often - to the rooftop of the Daily Planet.

Like Bruce said: Superman does it _right._

So when Bruce decides it's time to get a good, close look at Tall, Dark and Primary-Coloured, he contracts a cheap team of mercs from Bludhaven through about sixteen shell companies to kidnap Bruce Wayne, rough him up a bit, and, as a contingency, instructs them to deliver him to the Red Hood for ransom, right after depositing the ransom money in one of Jason's perfectly untouched Swiss accounts.

It's foolproof.  
It doesn't go as planned.

Bruce has one hand on the steering, as he coasts into Metropolis from the exit ramp off I-77. It's a blustery fall morning, the sky scrubbed with dark clouds, and the radio splutters from static into a newscaster’s tense voice.

 _“-reports are just now coming in from the Fukushima prefecture of Japan, reporting waves as high as six feet crashing against the coast. Rescue teams have been dispatched by Chinese and South Korean governments,”_ but Bruce had stopped listening already, hitting the speed dial for Alfred.

“Master Bruce?”

“Alfred. You need to call the mercs. You need to call it off _now_.”

“Sir?”

“There’s a fucking _tsunami!_  In _Japan!_  Superman’s not going to **_be_** in Metropol-”

The armored van comes out of _nowhere,_ slamming into the hood of Bruce’s perfectly nice Lotus and throwing him in a gut-churning tailspin. His head whips around, slams into the side of the car with a gristly _thud_.

When the world fades to black, it's almost a relief.

 

 

_“He out?”_

_“Like a light. Maybe we shoulda gone easy on the dosage. He was already unconscious from the car crash.”_

_“And have Bruce Wayne wake up and take a look at your ugly mug? I don't_ think _so, dumbass. Any reply from our benefactor?”_

_“Nothing. Man, I don't like hanging around Metropolis for this long. Ain't there anybody else who wants the rich boy?”_

_“...damn, Bruiser. You just had the first clever idea of your life. How does that feel?”_

_“Choke on my dick, ratpack.”_

_“I’m all yours, darling. But first, I know just the man who'd want his hands on Wayne. You know a way we can contact the Black Mask?”_

  


“Mr. Wayne,” a voice is calling out from far away.

There's something warm against his face, and Bruce is cold, so cold, he can feel it sliding under his skin, leaching into his bones - so he cats into the touch, nuzzles quietly against the heat. “Mr. Wayne?” the voice asks, suddenly closer now, and Bruce can feel warm breath against his chin, pleasant, and faintly smelling of coal smoke and ozone.

“Mm.”

A pressure against his orbital, and his eyelids are being prised open, into an ocean of bright, Mediterranean blue. “High blood pressure, increased core temp, uneven pupil dilation,” the voice is muttering, soothing and pleasant against Bruce’s ears. There is a thumb resting just under his lip, and Bruce wants to- _wants-_

“Mr Wayne, I don't know if you can understand me, but you’ve been dosed with some kind of… amphetamine, at a guess. I'm going to take you to a hospital, get you checked-”

Bruce's tongue flicks out, to taste that warm, thick thumb resting so close to his mouth - salt and smoke, oh god that's good, and there's blood rushing to his cock now, and that's Superman, _Superman_ , some part of his brain provides, impossibly strong, unbelievably gentle, Superman, who could pin him to the ground, hold him down, fuck him, _use_ him--Bruce moans, low and trembling, sucks in the digit into the burning wet heat of his mouth, peeling his eyes open to see Superman staring at him, shocked, pupils blown, still as a statue.

Bruce's hips buck from the chair, and the screech of wood against the granite flooring of the warehouse snaps Superman out of his daze, makes him fling himself backwards, eyes wide and undeniably dark.

“Hospital,” he rasps, like he's reminding himself.

Bruce lets his eyes slip down, where the dark blue of Superman's uniform hides nothing at all, the bulge of bright crimson so starkly evident. Bruce can feel himself clench at the sight, can feel a little wet dribble out of his cock.

“Hospital,” Superman repeats firmly, and in about three dizzying, blurred seconds, Bruce is being set down gently in the ER ward of Metro General, handed off to a foul-tempered nurse, shaky and weak-kneed and painfully, _uselessly_ hard.

  


Three days later, Bruce goes to the balcony of the penthouse suite at the Apollonian in downtown Metropolis, and at a voice pitched only slightly above speaking, says, “Superman. I’d like a moment of your time, if that's possible.”

He stares up into the velvet sky, and slowly sips at the scotch in his cut-crystal snifter.

Nothing.

Well, it's not like he’d expected any better.

Bruce turns around with a quiet exhale, and- and _Superman_ drifts down in front of him.

“You called?”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. Well, what do you know. “Do you turn up everytime someone calls?”

“When it's necessary,” Superman replies evenly, and goes up a few notches in Bruce's estimation, “yes.”

“And tonight it was... ‘necessary,’” Bruce repeats slowly.

“Yes. I believe there's an apology due.”

Bruce laughs hollowly.

 _Jesus. Of course. Of course,_  Superman  _can't be accused of being a fucking_ faggot _, can he?_

Bruce drains the rest of the damned scotch. “Right. I- Well, I was drugged, if that's any excuse. I do apologize for any unwanted adv-”

“What?!” Superman looks horrified. _“No!_ I meant _me!”_

“...I beg your pardon?”

“ ** _I_** was the one who- You were _drugged_ and I- I-”

...Big Blue, reduced to blushing, stuttering eighth-grader. This is _fun._ The scotch is singing pleasantly in his veins, and Bruce tilts his head to the side. Smiles.

“I’m honestly so sorry for-” Ocean bright eyes, narrowing at him. He should probably be more afraid. “Are you **_laughing_** at me?”

“Maybe.” He _absolutely_ is. “I’ve been wondering… What would you have done if I hadn't been drugged?”

Oh but Bruce knows to watch for it, and there it is now, that tell-tale flare of irises, the dark that pools in his beautiful eyes.

“What?” Clark asks, hoarse, and Bruce allows himself a slow, lethal curve of a smile.

He steps forward, wraps a hand around Clark's wrist. Lifts it to his mouth. Drags his mouth against the pad of his thumb, full of clear, undeniable intent, slow against soft lips, hot breath, the silken rasp of his tongue. Wraps his mouth around the tip of Superman's index finger, sucks it in, in, past one knuckle, then two, tongue stroking down the bottom, cheeks hollowing out, their eyes locked. Two fingers, three. His hand is tight around Superman’s wrist, right up against his heartbeat when Bruce moans around his fingers, hungry, wanting, and feels Superman’s pulse stutter and trip and _soar._


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce releases those thick, gorgeous fingers from the his mouth.

“That's what I thought,” he murmurs, only a little bit smug, and then Superman’s making a harsh, broken noise, dragging Bruce in by the collar of his shirt for a hot, open-mouthed kiss, fierce and full of teeth, hands tangling in his hair, buttons pinging against his chest when he rips Bruce’s thousand-dollar shirt open, when he drags Bruce in by his ass to rut his hard, thick cock against the hollow of his hip and Bruce is dizzy, spinning, gasping, the world tiling off its fucking axis from nothing but--but a _kiss._

“God,” Superman’s whispering against his mouth, a thumb beneath his jaw to force his lips apart, not that Bruce’s isn’t boneless underneath him, tongue plundering, sucking quick, painful bruises into his jaw, his neck, and Bruce can't- Bruce knows what he sounds like, desperate sounds escaping his throat, hands sliding frictionless along Superman’s back, across that damnable uniform. “God, you're so- Bruce, Bruce, fuck, how are you so _good_ -”

And Bruce doesn't know, can't answer that question, so he makes a quiet, begging sound, and Superman understands, slots their mouths together again, kissing and kissing until Bruce can't breathe, until there’s darkness creeping on the corners of his vision, his cock a painful, throbbing wire of need, rutting against Superman's cock, hard against hard, thumbs digging into his neck, his hips, the narrow V of his abs, Jesus, Jesus-

“A bed, we need a-”

“In here, there’s-”

Another blurred, dizzying moment, and Bruce is flat against the mattress, Superman crawling over him, trailing his mouth over Bruce’s chest, sinking teeth into his collarbone, rutting furiously against his thigh, and it's too _much_ , too good-

“Clothes,” Bruce manages to groan. “Off, off, c’mon.”

Superman looks up at him, grinning, and it strikes Bruce how _young_ that smile is, happy and uncomplicated, and he strokes Superman’s cheekbone helplessly, something tight and unbearable twisting in his chest.

“How attached are you to these pants?” Superman murmurs, running a hand up his thigh, underneath his ass, cupping, _squeezing._

Bruce bites back a humiliating sound.

“I’d like to be a lot _less_ attached to them,” he manages pointedly, and Superman laughs, ripping them off in a single, fluid motion, his own suit seeming to vanish in a blur.

“Oh,” Bruce whispers, running his hands down those shoulders, down that gloriously perfect chest, fists his fat, veiny cock, slightly listing to the left, balls tight and heavy, god he wants that in his _mouth,_ wants that buried in his ass, wants to draw him in, lock him in, keep him prisoner, wants, needs, _craves_ -

“Hey… Bruce,” Superman whispers, kissing his eyebrows, his cheeks, the corners of his mouth, cupping his face, “hey, hey, come back to me.”

Bruce blinks slowly, meets Superman’s eyes.

“You with us?”

He nods, and Superman lets his thumb rest there again, the divot just beneath his lip, light and warm and firmly present. “Tell me what you need, Bruce.”

“I…”

“Yeah, baby, come on. Whatever you need.”

“If you could--fuck me.”

The thumb tightens against his chin. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I need you to- come  _on_ _-”_

Soft lips, brushing his mouth, swallowing the rest of what he was about to say. “Whatever you want,” Superman whispers. “God, the things I want to- Come on, baby, spread those legs, show me where you need it-”

The sound Bruce makes is awful: high and inhuman, but he complies anyway. Superman finds the lube in the sidetable, unprompted, and then there's a soft kiss against his neck, over his heart, tongue sliding down his belly, mouth wrapping around his cock-

“I can't-” Bruce whispers, fucking helplessly into Superman’s waiting, loose mouth, “I won't last.”

There's a hard, blunt pressure at his hole now, a slow, aching burn while Superman breaches him with two fingers. “Yes you will,” comes the reply, quiet and dark. “Won’t you?”

“G-god.” The fingers screw deeper, faster, and it's not kind, not comfortable, relentless and piercing, cleaving him open on that thick, ruthless pressure, and Superman’s mouth tightens around his cock, bobs up and down once. “Oh g-god, I- I c- Too m-much-”

“Yes you can,” Superman growls, hoarse, pinching the tip of Bruce’s dick cruelly, making him cry out, buck backwards, down against those bloody fingers, tears leaking from his eyes. “You won't come until let you, will you, baby? Not until you’re begging, and hurting, and full of my cock, not until you're crying on it, not till then. _Will_ you.”

Bruce sucks in great lungfuls of air, throat feeling choked, four of Clark’s fingers buried knuckles deep inside of him. A hard swat against his side.

_“Will you,”_ Superman demands.

“No,” Bruce gasps. “No.”

“Good,” Superman murmurs, climbing up his body again, and Bruce is shaking, sweaty, eyes red, cock purple with blood, sticky with saliva and precome against his abs, hips twitching as Superman finds his prostate and _rubs._

_“Don't_ come _,”_ he commands. “Not yet.” The fingers pull out slowly and Bruce whimpers at the loss. “Sssh, hush, baby, I’ll fill you up, I’ll take care of you,” and there's a hot, blunt pressure against his hole, the thick, mushroom head of a cock pushing against him, “Come on baby, open up for me,” so Bruce does, and it sinks in, with a wet, ugly squelch, and oh- _oh_ -

Superman slides into him in a single, heavy stroke, dragging across his prostate, and Bruce _keens,_ clutching at his shoulders, thighs spreading wider still, and Superman pulls back, fucks into him just like that, again, again, until he’s groaning at every stroke, cock dribbling precome into a pool, begging nonsense words, Superman dropping kisses against his eyelashes, his temples, his brow, “Yeah, yeah, Bruce, baby, _fuck_ ,” an endless stream of need, until he's tightening up, and then coming, coming, untouched, thick, raw ropes of cum painting across his chest, and Superman makes a rough, wild noise, grips his hips hard enough to _break_ and fucks into him so fast he’s almost a blur, _vibrating_ against his prostate, making Bruce nearly scream from the stimulation, it's too- too- like being _electrocuted,_ only then he’s coming, coming inside Bruce, hot and wet and endless, filling him up, plugging him in, tongue lapping away Bruce’s tears, lips sipping softly from his mouth, whispering his name, awed, reverent - _“Bruce. Bruce.”_

And Bruce wonders if he always knew the night would end like this.

  
  


In the morning, the bed is empty.

Bruce feels something hard settle in his gut, while he blinks away the last shadows of sleep. 

Several hours, three cups of coffee, and a poorly organized board meeting later, Bruce hears about a crack in the reactor wall of the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, and a Superman sighting by Japanese press.

But the knot in his chest isn’t made of rational things, and it doesn’t go away. By then, the damage is done.


	3. Chapter 3

Bruce doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't fifteen alarms going off in the Cave that night, and Alfred picking up an aerial surveillance drone’s video feed to zoom in on Superman landing in the back lawns of the Wayne estate.

“God _damn_ it.”

It takes about thirty seconds to strip off the suit on his way upstairs, to get into a shower and eliminate the scents of Kevlar, leather and gunpowder, that Bruce has no doubt cling to the suit at all times.

“He's in the balcony, sir,” Alfred provides quietly, along with loose cotton trousers and a cashmere cable-knit. Bruce doesn't ask which room’s balcony, because he isn't stupid.

“Does he know about…?” Alfred begins and Bruce cuts him off with a look.

“I see, Master Bruce. And do _you_ know his…?”

“ _No._ ”

“Ah. Shall I put away the… other suit then? I assume ‘you’ won't be going out tonight?”

Bruce glares at him. Alfred stares back calmly, but there's something in his eye - a look Bruce can't quite decipher. Damned inscrutable bloody Englishmen.

“That’ll be all, Alfred.”

Alfred’s left eyebrow twitches. “Very good, sir. Have a pleasant evening.” _Oh, that bastard._

Alfred turns on a heel and glides away, and Bruce lets himself into his bedroom with a sigh, grabbing two glasses and a decanter on the way.

Superman is hovering in the balcony, about three inches off the ground, hair damp, shoulders slumped and the filthy stink of sewage seeping off of him.

“Superman.”

He looks up, and Bruce sucks in a cool, uneven breath at the look in his eyes, the yawning, broken emptiness, like a young god brought low.

“My name,” Superman begins softly, “is-”

“No,” Bruce interrupts, sharp, a knife cutting through unwanted words.

“...‘no’?”

“Don't,” Bruce tells him urgently, carefully softening his words, saying the one thing he has never heard. “You don't need to do that. You don't have to tell me.”

Superman stares at him, and then looks away. He laughs, a grating, hideous sound that makes Bruce want to flinch away.

“Right,” Superman mutters to himself. “Of course you don't want to know. Ruins the cape, doesn’t it? If it’s just some guy named Jim?” He shakes his head, and Bruce is cracking apart, a fine tremor racing down his spine when Superman rocks back on his feet, preparing to take off. “Look, I don't know why I came here. It’s been a long day, I wasn't really thinking, so maybe I'll just--”

“ _Stay_.”

Superman stares at him, fists balled up, that sweet, perfect mouth pressed into a hard line, and Bruce stands there, in front of him, feeling like he’s been hilted to the chest with one of Deathstroke’s katanas, between the ribs and right through the heart.

“You don't want to know my name,” Superman grits out, “but you want me to-?”

“Knowing your identity is a _security risk_ ,” Bruce snaps, irritated, and good _god_ , it's fucking _appalling_ , this recklessness--it's not as if Superman knows anythingabout Bruce Wayne, and to trust a man like _that_ with a secret so important: is he _insane?!_

“Oh.” Superman looks like he’s been slapped. He fidgets, and drifts down, until his feet are pressed to the ground. “Well, my Kryptonian name is…”

“Yes?” Bruce prompts, and thinks, _‘Stay, stay, stay,’_ a broken record on repeat.

“Kal, of the House of El.”

Bruce grips the decanter tighter. “Kal,” he repeats unsteadily. Drops the glasses and the scotch on a side table. Steps closer, and closer still, until they're pressed together, until he’s backed up _Kal_ against a wall, and they kiss like that, Bruce’s hands twisting tightly in his hair, licking away the awful taste in his mouth - blood and reek and fetid water, he's been in Japan, apparently - until he can taste what he did last night, clean, coppery ozone, like oxygen at a mountain peak.

Kal is pliant, completely, and Bruce peels down his uniform pants, strips off his own trousers, wraps a hand around them both, and jacks them off right there, slow and steady until it's not, trading hungry, wet kisses, sharing air, until Kal shudders, gripping Bruce’s shoulders painfully, burrowing his lovely face into the curve of Bruce’s neck, shaking and shaking and sobbing when he comes.

The next morning, Kal-El is still there, naked, sprawled on his stomach, his back glowing in a puddle of golden sunlight. His expression is open, and painfully young--he can't be more than five or six years older than Dick.

Bruce tries not to think about that.

(He disappears before breakfast, kissing Bruce on the corner of his mouth, before zipping off in a flash of red, no doubt headed back to a tsunami-struck coastline on the other side of the world. He sets off every goddamn alarm on the way out. Again.)

((It probably says something, that Bruce doesn’t even mind, carefully re-calibrating each alarm to allow Superman through, but he’s not going to think about that either.))

Twelve minutes later, the first bomb goes off in the Gotham wharfs, Bruce fights off an alien suicide bomber and hears the word ‘Darkseid’ for the first time.

_“You’ve met_ **_Superman_ ** _?!” the man who’s been calling himself Green Lantern, and getting into firefights with the United States Air Force, asks._

_“I’ve been keeping an eye on him,” Bruce replies with a little shrug, perfectly honest._

_Maybe he’s been keeping more than an eye on him, but who needs to know that? Not the guy who thinks it was a good idea to make his supersuit green. Or_ **_animated_ ** _._

_...especially not after the moron flies them off to Metropolis in a giant, green, glowing jet, and gets into a fistfight with Superman._

“So,” Kal murmurs to Bruce, while Lantern whimpers somewhere twelve feet behind them, his face buried in concrete, “what can _you_ do?”

His red cape whips in the wind, his eyes crackle dangerously scarlet, his hands are balled up into enormous fists, packing roughly the same level of driving force as a transatlantic freighter being tossed off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

The last time Bruce saw him, those hands had been clutching at his back, that cape had been dripping with saltwater from another ocean.

Those eyes had been blue.

“I don’t want to fight,” Bruce grits out quietly.

Kal smirks at him. “Shame. That’s gonna make this a lot less fun.”

He braces for the hit. It never comes.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Kal hisses, hand wrapped around Bruce’s throat. His ears are still ringing from getting slammed into a wall. Apparently, Kal has _very_ well-defined preferences, when it comes to fucking andfighting. “I could have _killed_ you!”

“Didn’t seem like your style,” Bruce chokes out. Kal pulls back, shocked. His eyes unfocus, like he’s switching to a different visual frequency, but Bruce isn't worried. There’s lead lining his cowl, and an intricate biofeedback system running through the suit--his identity is safe, and so he starts to say, “I need to to _tell_ you someth-”

\--and that’s when Lantern launches himself out of the rubble with a deafening battle cry, and slams his face right into--

\--Superman’s fist.

_Honestly._

The _timing_ on this guy.

Bruce dusts himself off again, and surveys the damage. Lantern’s breathing hard, and Kal seems like he’d like to burn a hole into the surface of the moon. Well, that makes two of them.

Still, someone probably has to be the adult here - only, why does it always have to be _Bruce?_ \- so he says, “If you two are quite done,” and oh god, that’s Alfred’s line, what _joy,_ “we need to talk.”


	4. Chapter 4

Darkseid comes.

And takes--

He takes Kal.

 

It seems, while Bruce wasn’t watching, that the visiting alien population on Earth went up about 3000%, and that Earth’s best hope might be a kid in red spandex, a college draft-pick who accidentally fused his own damn body with _sentient armor_ and an immortal demigoddess in thigh-highs and a bustier.

Because _Kal’s--_

_(gone.)_

They’ve _taken--_

_(him forever.)_

No.

**_No._ **

“I'm going to get him back.”

“Get back from _WHERE?!”_ Lantern yelps, when Bruce breaks into a clean sprint down a deserted Metropolis street, and really, if the answer’s not self-evident, maybe he’d giving the guy too much credit. “HEY!” he yells at Bruce’s back. “What the hell are you _GOING??!!”_

Bruce scales a teetering pile-up to its highest point, and throws himself up, arms extended high, braced perfectly for the moment when one of the Parademons swipes him out of the air, and towards the alien ships over the Metropolis harbour.

Bruce states the obvious.

“I’m going to get Superman.”

Bruce finds Kal.

They’re _torturing_ him.

The boomtubes erupting inside the cavernous alien ship eliminate Kal’s captors, and Bruce vaults forward, catches Kal before he can hit the ground, dark black sludge still oozing over his skin, his eyes unfocused, bloodshot, a faint, grey pallor across his face that Bruce can’t remember ever seeing before.

_Kal._

“Superman.”

_Please be okay._

“Can you hear me?”

“I saw…” Kal rasps, and his hands are shaking the way they did after Japan. Bruce’s hands grip the back of his neck, fist helplessly over his heart. “Darkseid… Across the multiverse, spread like a disease…”

_We’ll fix it. We’ll destroy him. We’ll wipe him off the face of existence, just be okay, be okay, please, **please** , be okay--_

“You need to get your head on straight,” Batman snarls instead. “We have to get through one of those wormholes before they close.”

Darkseid and Flash burst through, and Kal’s still whispering, “ _Factories of flesh… Children. I saw children screaming…_ ”

Bruce’s grip on Clark is brutal, so tight it hurts, and he begs, “Superman, we _need you,”_ lets the hurt bleed through into his voice, lets the ache scrape against the back of his throat, and burn in the corners of his eyes.

Kal’s eyes flash red.

Bruce’s heart starts beating again.

They win.

Kal lives.

_They win._

No one knows Batman is Bruce Wayne.

No one ever can.

And that’s fine.

It’s--it’s _fine._

 

When Superman alights on his balcony, some fourteen hours later, the sun’s just starting to creep down the horizon in Gotham. Bruce has a few fingers of a good rye left in his glass, the ice long since melted.

“Hey there,” he calls out, and tips his glass towards Kal. “You’ve been busy.”

Kal’s smile is bashful, scrubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t think you’d be awake.”

“Watching the news. Couldn’t sleep through the end of the world. Good job, by the way.”

Kal grins, boyish and open, and there’s no hint of the man who was pinned down to a rack just hours ago, tortured to within an inch of insanity-

-but he’s **_not_** a man.

Bruce always forgets.

“Thanks,” he replies, like he actually means it. Christ, he probably does.

“You were a Boy Scout, weren’t you?” Bruce asks, and Kal’s eyes flick away like the worst poker player in Vegas. The laugh that bubbles out of Bruce’s throat shocks him more than anyone else. “Oh no,” he chuckles, “Of _course_ you were, what was I _thinking-_ ”

“Shut up,” Kal murmurs, drifting closer, bracketing him up against the balcony. The railing digs into a bruise, and Bruce inhales sharply.

Kal draws back, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, did I--you’re _hurt!”_ Hands running over his sides, careful, eyes unfocusing as they run over his body, curling through his hair, and Bruce sighs out gently, submits to the once-over. “ _Bruce_ ,” Kal says, and he sounds _so_ … “Why didn’t you--say anything?”

“It’s not--” Bruce shrugged uncomfortably. “I got caught in an accident. During the blasts. It doesn’t matter.”

Dark eyes, hard as flint, cold as glass. “It matters to _me._ ”

“I--” Naked emotion, reckless concern. All these things, that Bruce doesn’t know what to do with. “Yes. Okay.”

“You _tell_ me, next time.” _Next time. God. Does he even know what he **does** to Bruce. _“You always _tell me,_ do you understand--”

  
Bruce surges forward, covers Kal’s mouth with his, only a little desperate, to stop his goddamn _words,_ bites into his mouth, and whispers, “Shut up, will you shut _up--”_ and Kal laughs and gentles the kiss, and cradles Bruce’s jaw, runs his hands down his chest, and says, “Easy, easy, we’ve got time, don’t--baby, don’t hurt yourself,” like anything this good ever lasts in Bruce’s life, like what they've got doesn't come with a countdown, like every minute they spend together doesn’t mean they’re already running out of time.

Kal’s mouth is hot, sweet, bruising him open, hungry, until he says, “Not tonight,” and Bruce’s grip on him goes instinctively tighter, “Not--Bruce, you’re hurting--”

“I’m fine,” Bruce growls impatiently, Batman’s register slipping into his voice, and Kal’s hips twitch, a fraction, hard against his hard, just from this, from necking on the balcony like overeager teenagers, bourbon pleasantly numbing out the last aches of the battle.

“No, you’re not--Bruce,” he pleads, cupping his face, drawing back, god those eyes could kill a man. “Please--would you--I know there’s,” and he runs his hands down his sides, over the t-shirt that hiding Bruce’s skin, and his thousand scars, “I know there’s secrets you won’t tell me, and that’s--I can, I can learn to live with that, but I can’t--I can’t be one more thing you use to hurt yourself.”

Jesus.

Kal’s still watching him, and Bruce wonders what the hell he sees in him, to put that look in his eyes.

(tell him tell him NOW tell him, trust him, before it’s too late--)

“Bed,” he murmurs, kissing the corner of his beautiful mouth, trying to hide the way his hands shook. “Now.”

Kal speeds them into the bedroom, familiar already with the apartments, letting Bruce land on top of him. There’s something about this, having Superman between his thighs, flushed and wanting, hair mussed from the flight, red cape and blue eyes--Bruce rolls his hips slowly, finding the hollow of his hip, rutting into it, and watches Kal groan, fist the sheets, eyes wide like he can’t look away.

“What do you want?” he asks, voice hushed, sliding like whiskey over gravel.

“G- god,” Kal whispers back, when Bruce balls up the shirt at the back of neck and tugs it out in a single, fluid motion, tosses it back. His hands run over Bruce’s chest, greedy, and then he’s levering himself up, running his teeth over Bruce’s neck.

“I’m not that rich,” Bruce manages to say, fingers digging into broad, rock-solid shoulders, drags Kal’s mouth up to his, trading air in the space between their lips.

“This,” Kal replies, and he sounds so gone, it’s like a drug. “Just… god, Bruce, fuck, this is g- good.”

Bruce grins, vicious, slants their mouths together, ruts gracelessly, pushes Kal back onto the bed, fucks against his big, beautiful body, until they’re both coming, easy and sharp-bright, a wash of stars.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 marks the end of the Justice League: War (2014) storyline in the DCAMU which is the verse I've chosen for this fic to be set in. 
> 
> Chapter 5 picks up post JL-formation, where all the capes (except, obviously, Batman) reveal their secret identities to one another. 
> 
> FOr those of you who've read the comics/watched the movie, yes, I know Bruce de-cowls to give Hal the pep talk and also get the parademon into abducting him to rescue Kal, but like, I'm handwaving it away bc? artistic license? LET ME HAVE THIS PLEASE. And as for the place in continuity, think of it as somewhere post JL:TOA?? It literally does not matter AT ALL, except for the fact that Aquaman and Damien -and whoever the fuck else I want- Exist. 
> 
> For any confusion I may have caused, I'm sorry. This is all horribly un-beta'd bc I have no patience and/or basic impulse control.

Bruce wanders downstairs, sometime after midnight, and finds... _Dick?_

Dick at _home--_

Dick in the kitchen, Jesus _Christ_ , eating a bowlful of Cheerios at the breakfast table, like it’s any other day--

Getting decked by Darkseid didn’t hurt like this.

“Hey, Bruce.”

“What are you doing here?” Bruce blurts out, harsh and abrupt, and hates himself immediately. “I mean--” he shakes himself, “I was--Is everything alright?”

“I was gonna ask _you_ that,” Dick replies pointedly.

“I’m--fine. It was fine.”

Dick hmms. “Damien says you’re having over a sleepover buddy these days.”

“Does he.”

Dick cracks a grin, familiar and cheeky, and something twists inside of Bruce, thorns around his ribs, cutting into his heart.

“I might have… inferred. Heavily,” the kid says, shrugging, shameless, while Bruce tries desperately to keep his face wiped clean, to not show how he feels like he might be drowning. “There might have been some help from Alfred.”

“Oh, _Alfred’s_ helping you, of course. I’m surrounded by traitors.”

“Aw, poor Julius Caesar, is your life _hard,_ fucking _Superman_ on alternate Tuesdays?”

“Bit more often than alternate Tuesdays,” Bruce puts in mildly, and plugs in the coffeemaker - so what if it’s midnight, Bruce is the _master_ of bad decisions - while Dick gags on his Cheerios.

“Oh my _god,_ Bruce,” all high-pitched and gratifyingly horrified, “I don’t want to _know!”_

Bruce turns to pour himself an espresso, and hides a smile.

  
  


“Who was that?” Kal mumbles, later, half-lifting his face up from a pillow, when Bruce climbs back into bed, caffeine wearing off fast.

“Dick. Ah, Grayson. My--my oldest. He heard about the accident.”

Kal stills, watching Bruce carefully. Bruce wonders what he hears, what Bruce can’t hide. “Your oldest son.”

_Son._

Bruce lost the right to that word a long time ago.

“He’s a cop. Down in Bludhaven.” Bruce splays out on his stomach under the covers, presses his foot against Clark’s calf, like a talisman. A very warm, very solid talisman. “Moved out a few years ago.”

_I pushed him away. I lost him. I don't know how to get him back._

“I see.” _Christ’s sake. He probably does._ “Everything okay there?”

_(Maybe if you told him, he’d understand. Maybe, if you trusted him, if you just_ **_tried_ ** _\--)_

Bruce shifts forward, and brushes a kiss against his mouth, because if he doesn't, all his secrets are going to come spilling out like sewage, pouring, a waterfall that’ll obliterate everything they've got right now.

“It’s--fine,” he confesses to the dark, eyes closed, while Kal’s hand settles against his heart, thumping away double-time against his ribs. “Better now.”

“Good,” Kal whispers back, and sounds like he means it, like it _matters_ to him, and this is killing Bruce, does Kal even _know_ what he does--the power he holds? He has to _know._ “That's good.”

  
  


The fourth time Kal comes by is about a week later. Bruce is out on the patio, but these days, that's where he usually is, after a certain time.

“I was in Fukushima today,” Kal begins abruptly.

Bruce sips at his poison of choice for the night--barrel-aged scotch, only about 600 years old, each drop the price of liquid gold. “Sounds exhausting,” he remarks dryly, drinking in the sight of him.

“I was in Japan,” Superman repeats, low and intense, picking the glass out of Bruce’s hand, and stepping into his space like that's where he belongs, “and I found--you sent rescue teams? And medical aid? For the tsunami victims? That's--I checked, that's _millions_ of dollars, Bruce.”

“Wayne Corp did that,” Bruce waves off, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, smiles slow and pleased when Kal’s eyes flick downwards, like he can't help himself. “Tax write off, good publicity, something like that, I’m sure. Kal. I’m not my company.”

“You made this happen,” Kal insists. “I know. I _checked_.”

Bruce shrugs. “Oh fine, alright, I had ulterior motives.”

“You did.”

“It got you here quicker, didn't it?” Bruce smirks, trails the backs of his fingers idly down Kal’s chest. “I don't like dry spells, doll, you know how it is-”

“ _Don't_ ,” Kal breaks in, voice trembling with anger. “Don't make light of this, don't you _lie to me--_ I can hear your _heart,_ Bruce--just don't--”

“Mm. I’ll take it under advisement,” Bruce returns smoothly, grinning over the jagged beat of blood in his ears, and tugs lightly at the collar of Superman’s uniform. “Now, if you're feeling so terribly grateful, I think I'm owed some kind of reward, preferably _incredibly_ sexual--” and that gets a quiet, rough chuckle out of him, so Bruce checks one off in the win column anyway.

  
  


The thing is, it's so easy.

  
  


Bruce hops the Atlantic for a Wayne International’s launch party. Kal kisses him at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

  
  


There’s a conference in Brazil. Bruce rents out an island.

(It’s a little stub of volcanic rock off the coast of Rio, but Kal’s _delighted_ with it, like he doesn’t find little snatches of paradise like this one all the damn time - _“But they don’t have wi-fi, Bruce! Or flat-screen TVs! Or cookie dough!”_ \- and swims sixteen laps around the damn place until Bruce points out that the local aquatic ecosystem wasn’t built to handle whirlpools, that coastal erosion doesn’t need a helping hand, and that _Bruce_ , however, would very _much_ like a hand -- _’or a mouth, baby, you know me, I’m not picky at all’_ \-- while peeling off his swim trunks and stepping into the pool, Kal’s eyes hungry and dark as they track him from the coast.)

  
  


There’s a night, back in the penthouse in Metropolis, on the chaise lounges in the balcony of the penthouse of the Apollonian, lax from good food and better wine, when Bruce fastens his mouth over the pulse point of Kal’s jugular, heavy and erratic against his tongue, hands slick with lube, working him open so slowly, so carefully, while Kal writhes on his fingers, begs for more-- _’you can’t break me, come on, Bruce, god_ damn _it’--_ and Bruce kisses him, and says, “I don’t _want_ to break you,” while his fingers find the perfect spot inside Kal, the spot that makes his spine bend and arch, makes him groan hard enough to shake the Earth, “I never wanted to.”

  
  


Time slips away from him, like water cupped in shaky hands.

Kal still doesn't know the truth about Bruce.

  
  


The Toymaker makes an appearance in Coast City. The Lanterns are all off-sector--but Superman’s got a spare minute, and so does Bruce.

“Slow news day?” Batman asks Clark Kent, dropping a couple of grenades down a poorly positioned vent, and then levers off a nearby building, finds a rooftop at a safe, viewing distance.

“Midterms are sucking up all the column inches,” Clark replies over the comms, shrugging prosaically before he lands a quick one-two to the Toymaker’s _incredibly_ fragile monster-bot. “Hey, I heard Joker broke out of Arkham. Again.”

“He does that,” Batman says. The explosions go off with a bright bloom of white-blue fire. The robot goes down.

“Shout if you ever need backup,” Clark says, as the Toymaker ejects himself out of the control seat just in time, parachute flaring up over the horizon. Clark drifts down beside Batman, feet dangling over the edge of a seventy-floor skyscraper on the coastline. Batman _hmm’s_ quietly, and shifts to the side, making room for the both of them.

The sun’s setting over the sea, the sky awash with stripes of gold and lavender and blue, a gorgeous, Impressionistic vision of pastels, over rich, burnt chrome.

Clark’s shoulder presses against Batman.

They watch quietly.

 _Maybe_ , Bruce thinks, so quiet it's not even a whisper in his mind.

_Maybe this can work._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains minor consent issues. Please read at your own risk.

_Maybe, this can work._

It doesn't.

  
  
  


“Batman.”

Arthur Curry comes up on the massive viewscreen in the Cave, hair dark from the water, broad and terribly regal, dark hollows beneath his eyes. “I have credible intel from my people that--that Lex Luthor, while sending an exploratory crew to the South Pacific seabed, _supposedly_ to find deep-sea oil reserves,” Arthur’s face twists into an sneer, and he spits to the side, angrily contemptuous, “actually recovered a cache of submerged kryptonite.”

Bruce goes very, very still. Beside him, Robin and Nightwing tense too.

“We need to get in touch with-” Bruce begins, and is immediately cut off.

“-with Superman, yes, I tried to, just before calling you. Batman, I’m so--I’m so sorry,” and Bruce recognizes the look in his eyes, the same look of awful compassion that he had worn when he’d told Diana about Steve Trevor’s death, “but the Watchtower has no record of his whereabouts for the last six hours.”

  
  
  


“Bruce,” Dick says, gripping his shoulder as he starts to turn away. Bruce turns around, looks him in the eye. But Dick just looks… lost.

“Father,” Damien says, into the deepening silence. “ _Go_. Find him. We shall watch over Gotham.”

Bruce runs a hand through Damien’s hair, grips the top of his arm. The kid looks up at him, deadly and solemn, a perfect mirror of Bruce from twenty years ago.

Dick’s jaw hardens. “Yeah. Go on, then. Get him.”

“You’ll stay.” Bruce doesn’t phrase it as a question, but it isn’t a question. _Stay,_ is what he means. _Stay, please._

Dick hears him, maybe, because he nods, and steps to the side, so he’s right beside Damien. Bruce, for a second, doesn't remember how to breathe.

“Go. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  
  
  


It takes them eighteen hours.

_(too long too long you're too late too late everyone you love will die will die DIE DIE--)_

  
  
  


“I have a pulse,” Batman says quietly, crouched over Superman’s prone body, and the rest of the League exhales, beyond exhausted. “Flash, if you don't mind.”

Barry blurs, and a half second later, the strange silver-grey kryptonite ringing Superman is gone. Bruce runs his hands over Superman, perfunctory, efficient, without lingering at all. “No other sign of damage.”

“We still need to get him to the Watchtower,” Diana points out. “There might be continued side-effects to exposure to… whatever iteration of kyrptonite _that_ was.”

She's right, of course, but there's a part of Bruce--a quiet, angry, _violently_ territorial part--that wants to tell her to fuck off and _burn_ , Kal's not going out of his sight _ever_ again, he’ll take care of what's _his--_

He doesn't follow that thought.

“Agreed,” he says calmly, instead. “Lantern, we’ll need a transport to the stratosphere.”

  
  


Kal revives on their trip up, eyes opening with a full-body jerk, his pupils tiny pinpricks in the blue of his irises, blind, unseeing.

“Superman. Superm- _Clark._ I’m here. Can you hear me?”

Bruce doesn’t know when he takes Kal’s hand, doesn’t realize it until Kal squeezes, at a fraction of his usual strength, while his pupils dilate with dizzying speed.

_“Bruce,”_ he groans, and Hal shoots them a curious, backwards glance.

“Who's Bruce? Is he hallucinating?”

Bruce nods. “It’s his--the name of someone he’s--” But there’s no word to define _them_ , they’ve never talked about it, Bruce realizes, a gut-punch hollow just below his ribcage.

“Superman’s got a _boyfriend_?” Hal asks skeptically. “Huh. So you two aren’t--I mean,” he backtracks hurriedly when Bruce turns to _Look_ at him, “you know what? My mouth, it fucking, it runs off without my permission, man, it’s got a mind of its own. I’m just gonna, uh, focus on navigating the ozone layer. Okay. _God_.”

Bruce turns back to Clark, whose breath is coming harsher now, erratic, colour high in his cheeks. Grips his hand tighter, presses the other hand flat against his chest, over the ‘S’, when it looks like Kal wants to sit up, get out of the bed.

“No, Clark, you need to-- stay down, goddammit--” But even a weakened Superman is stronger than most men, and the longer he spends outside of direct exposure to the kryptonite, the faster his strength will return, if past experience counts for anything.

Except, of course, with this new variant, Bruce doesn’t even know what effect it might still be having on Superman…

Clark’s eyes are hazy, unfocused, and his hand comes up to grip Bruce by the back of his neck, dragging him down, rubbing his cheek against the grain of Bruce’s five’o’clock shadow, a low rumble in his chest, like a big cat laying in the sun.

“Uh, Batman,” Hal whisper-shouts from his seat at the console, “you, uh--you **_sure_** you two’re not--Shutting up! Now! I swear! _Yeesh_.”

Kal's writhing against Bruce’s hand, like he can’t hear Bruce telling him to stop, to hold it, and that’s got to be the kryptonite, lowering his inhibitions, letting his id out to run the show. Bruce is suddenly, horribly grateful the stuff seems to have depleted his powers as well. _This_ version of Superman, at full strength?

God, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Not that Kal seems particularly dangerous, right now. All _this_ Kal seems to want is--

“Holy Mary Mother of _God_ ,” Hal breathes, bug-eyed, craning over his shoulder, “that’s a boner.” He sounds _traumatized_.

“Aren’t you supposed to be piloting this thing?” Bruce demands, eyes firmly fixed on Kal’s eyes, sleepy and slitted, mouth wide open, gasping for air while his hips rise sinuously off the bed, like he’s hungry for it, like he wants--

“I’m multi-tasking! I can do that! Oh god, Supes is gonna be _mortified_ later- oh, hey! We’re here!”

The bay doors to the Watchtower’s landing module slide open and the Javelin enters smoothly, docking at the port. Hal’s unbuckling his seatbelt like his life depends on it. It does. “Hey, so, Bats, do you need any help getting him to--”

“Get out.”

“Oh thank god. I’ll put a sock on the door.” And for the first time in his life probably, Hal Jordan throws himself out of the exit with impeccable timing.

  
  
  


_“Clark,” a deep, faraway voice was calling. “Clark,” all low, gravelly syllables, and Clark blinked slowly, like he was deep, deep underwater, like all his muscles were woven of sticky soft honey, and he looked, and saw, darkness._

_Darkness, and soft lips, and his name, and oh, oh Bruce, it was Bruce, and his heart pumped wildly, hello Bruce, I’ve missed you, missed you, dragging his mouth close, but Bruce didn’t want to kiss, kept saying, “Kal, you need to snap out of this god_ damn _it, Kal, come on,” and he let Bruce’s voice wash over him, gossamer-soft, dragged his lips against his skin, felt the scrape of day-old stubble, inhaled him in greedy, desperate gulps, god he felt good, so good, Kal needed- needed-_

_“Kal, what the hell are you--” Bruce started to say, but then Kal had twisted quickly, pulled Bruce beneath him, ripped the cape out of his way, and locked his mouth over Bruce’s and god, god, he was so, “You need to stop,” Bruce said, but that wasn’t right, was it?_

_No, there it was, Kal found Bruce’s pulse when he dug his fingers into the armour of his suit, ripped it apart like wet paper, licked hungrily down his scarred, beautiful chest, raked his teeth over a pebbled nipple, salt and sweat and a pounding heartbeat, yes, yes, Bruce, god, so beautiful, you’re so beautiful, I want, I want, and Bruce was running his hands through Kal’s hair, the saddest, smallest smile on his face, and Kal wished he could see Bruce’s eyes, but he couldn’t, there was something--something wrong? Bruce? Bruce?_

_“Batman,” he said, “I’m Batman, Clark, don’t forget that, alright?” before tugging Kal up, so they could--kiss, finally, oh god, it was like water in the desert, Kal was parched for it, hungry, clawing, licking into his mouth, finding sweetness and heat, making his skin bleed warmth, sending blood roaring straight down to his cock, and Bruce was so good about it, so willing and pliant and_ good _, soft, hitching noises escaping his mouth when Clark sucked a bruise into the knob of his collarbone, licked a tight, wet circle around the mark. Another tug, and the utility belt ripped clean apart, the dark, titanium polymer weave of the suit, the polycarbonate mesh underneath, the cup, torn through like it was nothing, and then it was cock against cock, hard, velvet heat, a brand on his skin, Kal’s hand fisting around them both, tugging hard and quick and rough, sharp short inhales, until he made an angry, unsatisfied sound, until he nipped harshly against Bruce’s mouth, and Bruce kissed back, Batman kissed back, it was blurring together now, and Kal hurt, he_ hurt, _everything_ ** _hurt,_** a high piercing, continuous whine slicing through the world, lancing right through his eyes, it hurt, it hurt it **hurt--**

“CLARK!” he could hear Batman roar, over the sound of screaming, who was screaming, but his voice sounded different, how did it--- _unmodulated,_ of course, Clark had ripped out the modulator, Clark had ripped the whole bloody suit, and he tried to, “I’m sorry, Batman, I’m so--” but he was screaming, screaming, and the sound grew louder, a knife of pure, unyielding fury, pounding through his skull, setting his world aflame, and then--

darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few points of note: First, unlike the rest of the story, this chapter has multiple POVs, so watch out for those. Second, yes, I agree, it's all terribly filler-y, I just... it's a necessary evil. I tried to delete this chapter entirely but... I think the story works better with, although there is an argument to be made for the other side. Hope it doesn't suck? Um, anyway. Carry on.

“How is he?” Diana asks, striding up to the doctor when she steps out of the medbay, still in her battle armor, sword strapped to her back.

Dr. Thompkins is the sort of woman who has never been intimidated in her life, and doesn't particularly see the point of it, so she allows Diana a blank, measured glance, before replying with a brusque, “Stable. Where’s Batman?”

“He left to stow away the kryptonite. Is Clark awake? Can we see him?”

Dr. Thompkins _tsk’s_ softly. “Of course he did,” she half murmurs to herself, and then, to Diana, “No, Miss Prince, not yet, I’m afraid. He’s still unconscious.”

“ _What._ ”

Dr. Thompkins almost smiles, then, kind, a new warmth in her eyes. “That kryptonite did a number on him. He isn't invincible, you know.”

And Diana _does_ know that, but--the concept feels _wrong_ somehow, foreign and strange. “What _happened?_ ”

The doctor is matter-of-fact, a brisk competence to her tone that is immediately reassuring. “The kryptonite had a very strange gamma signature, Miss Prince, that we believe caused a form of radiation poisoning as the particles decayed. Luckily, the half-life seems to be on an exponential curve and--” she chuckles a little at the glazed expression in Diana’s eyes. “A few hours in the sun-bed, Miss Prince, and he’ll be back to his old self. I doubt he’ll even remember what happened.”

 

 

 

Dr. Thompkins is the League’s doctor because Dr. Thompkins is very _very_ good at her job, so she is, in fact, mostlyright.

Only mostly, though.

 

 

 

There was a knock at Diana’s door, some sixteen hours later, double-tap-pause-tap, which meant it was either Clark, who was terribly sweet like that, except he was still knocked out in the medbay, or it was Batman, who tried to pretend he cared about others’ privacy, even though he absolutely did not.

Diana was quite certain he actually spied, very competently, on every member of the League and about six thousand other people besides, just for the heck of it.

“Enter,” she called out. The door hissed open. “Clark!” she greeted, surprised, putting her book aside. “I wanted to be there when you woke. How are you feeling?”

“Diana.”

Clark simply looked at her, quiet and still, a haunted, emptiness in his eyes. Diana had seen that look before, in a woman’s eyes just after battle, in a sister’s eyes when she cradled a corpse in her arms; she had seen soldiers with that look in their eyes, and she had seen men, women, children with that look too, before they took a gun and fired it into a crowd, into a friend, into their own head.

It was a dead look, and Diana stilled too.

“Clark,” she said again, lower, softer, rising from her seat. “What’s wrong?”

Clark exhaled, a man teetering at the edge of cliff, and she was sure he could hear her heartbeat racing, because this was when she felt fear, not before a battle, but before-- “I would like to formally tender my resignation from the Justice League. If you would inform the League at the next meeting, I’d be very--”

“ _Clark_. Clark, stop.” She stepped towards him, and she saw… She saw him flinch, a split-second, barely perceptible motion. No one else, no one _human_ , would’ve even noticed. She didn’t step closer. “Please, just tell me what’s wrong. Is this about what happened with Luthor? Because we’ll get him, we always do, I swear, he can only go to ground so long, we’ll hunt him down if that’s what it--”

“It’s not about Luthor.”

“Then what--is it the kryptonite? Because it’s already been buried in storage, it’s not going to be _near_ you again, we took care of that, Batman already--”

And there it was again. Barely a twitch.

“Clark. Did something… happen? After the exposure event, Hal said Batman had a handle on things. Was he… wrong?”

Clark met her eyes, and Diana wanted to-- _scream_ , to hit something, to make that look in his eyes _disappear_ , and then he said, his voice scraped clean of inflection, “I assaulted him.”

Diana almost, _almost,_ scoffed. “I don’t think people survive an assault from you with all their bones intact, Clark, Batman or no. Besides, there’s nothing he would hold against _you_ , especially not some stupid hit you landed, not if you apolo--”

“Not that kind of assault, Diana.”

“What do you--oh.” Silence rang like a hammerblow in her quarters then, as horrified understanding dawned over her.

“So you see,” he picked up relentlessly, in that broken voice, “there’s no apology in the world, there’s nothing I can do, no penance I can serve t-to f- _fix_ this--”

Clark lifted off the ground, breathing hard, before he forced himself into stillness once more, and said, quietly, “Please let the League know that--that serving with you all has been the highest honour of my life, and that if--if there is anything I can do, ever, to help the League, I will always be there. That's--um. That's all.”

“Oh, Clark,” she whispered, heat burning in her throat, but it was a long minute later, and Clark was already gone.

 

 

 

“Clear skies tonight,” Alfred murmurs quietly, clearing up Bruce’s dinner from the balcony outside his bedroom.

Bruce grunts a brief acknowledgement, and returns to the Wayne Corp. sales forecasts for the coming quarter in the MENA region, glasses sliding down his nose, a slow, drumbeat throb of a migraine starting to build up just behind his eyes.

“Shall I let the boys know you’ll be staying in tonight?” Alfred asks pointedly, and Bruce levels a brief glance at him.

“Yes, Alfred, thank you.”

Alfred straightens up, and stares at Bruce for a while longer, before replying, “Very good, Master Bruce. Have a pleasant evening,” and leaves. There is no pity in his voice, because Alfred has never pitied Bruce, never allowed Bruce to fall to that particular crutch, but this quiet, dignified solemnity, this unremarked exit, this is Alfred’s way of letting Bruce lick his wounds, and it--stings.

He waits until he’s certain Alfred’s left the wing entirely before allowing himself a sigh, tipping his head back against the couch cushions to scan the glittering night skies, stars bright and sharp against the velvet dark, so far from the Gotham’s light pollution.

“Hi.”

Bruce tenses, and exhales.

“Kal,” he murmurs quietly, heartbeat tripping ever so slightly. In a better world, every suit he owned would come with biofeedback. Another exhale, and then Bruce lets a quiet, knowing smirk curl up the corner of his mouth, lets Brucie Wayne slide over his skin like a prickly, uncomfortable shield, and meets Kal’s eyes.

“You wear glasses?”

Kal sounds shocked.

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “I am significantly older than you, doll,” he drawls back, and tacks on a fake, exaggerated leer, grinning when he murmurs, “Who’s your daddy?”

Kal huffs out a breath, but he doesn’t say anything, digging his heels into the floor, and twisting his hands behind his back. Something’s obviously very, very wrong.

“Okay. Let’s have it. Did someone die?”

Kal’s eyes snap up, wide. “What? No! Did something happen?”

“You tell me. Last time I saw that look on someone’s face, my kid’s dog had just gone into surgery.”

Kal stills, shrinks into himself even more, if that’s possible, looking hunted and guilty.

…oh damn it all to hell. _Guilty?_

“I- Um.” Kal trails off. “We need to talk.”

“Do we.”

“Yes.” Kal rallies, and walks up to where Bruce is sat, with the posture of a man approaching a firing squad. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Is that right.”

“Yes, I’m--I… I _fucked up_ , Bruce, and--”

Bruce chuckles, dry, a little bored. “I’m sure it wasn't quite that bad.”

“It _was--_ this was--there’s someone else who I--I’m--”

“Ah. That kinda ‘fucked up.’ Relax, sugar. It's not a big deal.”

“It… isn't?”

Bruce waves a hand idly through the air. “Not at all. Drop in, later, whenever you like. I’ll call someone else up for tonight, if you’re not feeling up to it..”

“You… Someone… _else?_ What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you sweet.” Bruce takes a slow, measured gulp of his really good whiskey. It could've just as easily been raw sewage, for all he tastes. “You didn’t think we were… what’re the kids calling it these days? Exclusive? Goin’ steady? Kal, baby, you’re gorgeous, but where’d you think I was spending my nights when I wasn’t at home?”

Kal’s eyes are wide, his breathing absent, his body as still as he can make it -- that is to say, as if every molecule in him has gone out of flux with the fabric of the rest of the universe.

“Oh,” Kal says, so soft it barely carries on the wind. _‘Oh,’_ just that one little sound, like a man who’s taken a knife to the gut, and Bruce files it away carefully, lets his heart rest now, lets his breath come even and flat. Later, he’ll pull that sound out, turn it over in his mind, let it burn in his veins, let it drag poison down into his soul. Later. _‘Oh,’_ Kal says, and then he smiles, bloodless and bleak, and straightens out, and closes his eyes.

He rises into the night sky, and Bruce doesn’t follow him until he’s out of sight, doesn’t look, doesn’t move. He waits, staring straight ahead, even and still and cold, all down to his bones, and when enough time has passed, he crushes the tumbler in his bare hand in a single, hard jerk of numb fingers.

The pain, blade-bright when it comes, is almost a kind of relief.

 

 

 

“Diana?”

She stiffens, her back to Batman, her face hidden from him, thank the gods, on her way out of the monitor station aboard the Watchtower. It was Clark’s shift she had covered: little wonder Batman was surprised.

Diana turns slowly, and there’s tension shivering in every line of her body, carefully reined in, but she’s sure it’s evident to him nevertheless.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, the modulator masking his voice, and Diana can’t help the sharp, quick bark of a laugh, hollow and too loud, echoing down the corridor.

He frowns. “Diana?”

“Sorry,” she says, waving off the incident, the pit in her stomach yawning wide and dark. “Sorry, it’s just--that’s the question of the day, it seems.”

He waits her out.

Finally, she says, in clipped, short syllables, “Clark has resigned from the League.”

“Resigned,” Batman repeats.

“Yes. He… told me what happened. What he did. To you. Aboard the Javelin.”

“Did he.”

“Not in any detail,” Diana says, and someone else would’ve hurried to add it, but Diana doesn’t, measuring out each word carefully, a clear-eyed impassiveness to her posture. Bruce can respect that, even if every atom in his body is screaming at him to _retreat._ “But he told me enough. He thought it would be best if… his presence wasn’t imposed upon--”

“Me?” Batman adds harshly. “I’ll survive. The League needs Superman.”

“Not _you_ ,” DIana replies sharply. “Imposed upon the rest of the _League_. We do _not_ need anyone who would--who would _do_ something so--”

“He _wouldn't have;_ these were exceptional circumstances. He was under the influence of kryptonite. He confused me for someone else. Diana. This is _Clark_ we’re talking about. Superman.”

“And that makes him--an exception to what rule, precisely?”

“Not--I’m not talking about exceptions. _Nothing happened_. I saw the onset of the symptoms ahead of time--I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve taken appropriate measures. This is _not_ on him.”

 _This is not on you either,_ she wants to rage. _You shouldn’t have to watch your allies, you don’t_ ** _need_** _to, he was your friend, he was your brother in arms, you trusted him with your life, as you_ ** _always_** _should, and trust is not a bad thing, not an evil thing, nor a luxury, trust is what sustains us, what holds us together, trust is the shield that guards the world,_ but she can’t say that, not to him because Batman wouldn't believe it, of course not; how could he, when he doesn’t even trust Diana with his name?

“It is on him,” she says instead. “Clark’s actions _are_ on him. I have accepted his resignation. I will not fight alongside someone who would do what he did--and nor would anyone else on the League, Batman. You chose us better than that.”

She moves to leave, and then stops once more. “I do not speak of this often, you understand… But an old friend of mine, on Paradise Island, she used to get knocked around by her lover all the time. No rhyme. No reason. I didn't know about it at the time, or I would've killed her. She died in battle, though, and afterwards, my friend came to stay with us at the palace. She told me, many years later, that the thing that helped her the most was to be told that it wasn't her fault. She had to hear that a lot, before she started believing it.”

“Diana. There is nothing similar in our situations. What Clark did--”

“--is not the point. The point is this: You do not hold responsibility for his actions. You did not invite betrayal. You did not _cause_ what Clark did, even if he didn't either. We do not know what was in his mind when he was recovering from the exposure; all we know is that he felt a measure of guilt strong enough to _leave the League._ Batman. Please, I only want you to hear this: It wasn't your fault. What happened wasn't your fault.”

Batman is quiet.

And so Diana leaves, and she doesn't hear him say, just as softly, “Wasn't it.”

 

 

 

Though it's dark, Clark knows his apartment isn't empty long before he exits the elevator.

Male, dark, mid-20s, heavy scarring, multiple fractures along fragile radials, collarbone, nose. Titanium-tripolymer-weave suit, escrima sticks crossing against his back, a lead-lined domino mask.

“Nightwing.”

“Yo,” Nightwing greets. “I stole your pop-tarts, sorry. I get snacky at night.”

“Okay.” He sits down at the dining table, a sickness clenching around his gut. Nightwing was--was Batman’s first protege. Did he know. Did he know what Clark--the thing he had done.

Nightwing shoves half the Confetti Cupcake into his mouth and chews, sprawled comfortably in his chair.

“So,” he says casually, “I heard you broke up with Bruce.”

Clark tenses. “You know Bruce?”

There’s a very, very brief pause in Nightwing’s chewing, a sudden uptick in his heartbeat, but to any ordinary observer, Nightwing’s entirely unmoved.

“I’m sorry,” Clark mumbles. “I don't mean to pry. Of course you know Bruce. The Batmobile was a Wayne Enterprise design, wasn't it?”

Nightwing remains extremely quiet.

“Sorry, sorry. You don't--reporter’s habit. You don't have to answer that.”

“Bruce _does…_ know Batman,” Nightwing admits quietly, and then adds, “You did _not_ get that from me,” letting the ‘or else’ linger pretty effectively, if you didn't consider how Clark could murder him just by squinting the wrong way.

“They're… friends?”

Nightwing snorts. “Uh, _no._ Batman just… sort of tolerates Bruce. For the… tech and stuff.”

“Oh.”

“You sound surprised.” Nightwing rips hungrily into another pop-tart packet, licking frosting from his fingers.

“I always thought they had a lot in common.”

The kid chokes on the pop tart.

That's not fair, Clark thinks to himself. He’s a grown man, really.

“Nightwing?”

He thumps his chest, and says, “Oh no _no,_ this I gotta hear: You think _Batman_ and _Bruce Wayne_ have a lot in common?”

Clark shrugs, drumming his fingers restlessly on the tabletop. “They're both desperate to protect the people they love, and they're both terrible at showing those people just how desperately they're loved. With Bruce, it’s his kids. Damian, and Dick. With--” Clark inhales shakily, and closes his eyes and thanks every god listening that it's dark, “With Batman, it's the Robins and the Batgirls and the League and--and Gotham.”

Nightwing’s quiet, eyes puppy wide behind the domino, his heartbeat tripping into an unsteady tempo, holding as still as one of Gotham’s crumbling gargoyles.

“You okay?” Clark asks worriedly.

_“Jesus motherfucking bellhopping Christ.”_

“Um.”

“I thought you two were just _fuckin’ around._ ” Nightwing’s words stumble over each other, shocked, accusatory.

“ _No,_ ” Clark replies sharply, and then clenches his eyes shut. “I mean, I thought--It doesn’t matter. Yes. It was--casual.” The word stings in his throat. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fucking _not,_ are you _kidding me,_ that goddamn _headcase,_ ” Nightwing hisses back, dropping the half-eaten pop-tart down, kicking back his chair, making a break for the window. Clark’s mostly sure Nightwing isn’t talking about him. “Casual, my left _tit_.”

“Kid, where are you--just use the stairs!” Clark calls out uselessly, but the former Robin has already shimmied out the open window and shot a decel line to the building across the road, swinging fluidly through Metropolis’ glittering skyline, and Clark watches him for miles, dazed, not entirely certain what’s just happened.


	8. Chapter 8

“Clark. We need to talk.”

The voice catches Clark unawares, the day after Nightwing’s fly-by, perfectly clear though it comes from miles away. Clark wonders what that says about him, that the only handful of people who can communicate with him like this -- Ma and Pa, and Lois, and Bruce -- has somehow expanded to include-- _him._

_Batman._

He stumbles a little, suiting up, and follows the sound of a… a breath, really, a scent on the air, a feeling more than anything tangible, and finds Batman perched on what might be Metropolis’ only gargoyle, topping the facade of some sort of neo-gothic revivalist monstrosity just south of the river.

Batman watches him, impassive, unreadable. “I wondered if you'd come.”

 _Always,_ Clark wants to say. _I’ll always come, if you call,_ but the words stick in his throat. What right does he have, to make that promise? To expect Batman would even want it from him?

“I talked to Leslie,” Batman continues, emoting about as much as a hunk of granite. “She said you would not remember what happened during the exposure. Obviously, she wasn't entirely right.”

“I remember enough,” Clark whispers hoarsely. “I remember you said no. I remember I didn't care.”

“I see.” Batman pauses. “Was that the appeal, then? That you thought I didn’t want to?”

Clark’s gut twists horribly. “What? No!”

And then he pauses, and replays Batman’s words. “‘That I thought’… You. _Did_ you--” Clark's heart is in his throat, and something keeps him from following the train of thought to its conclusion, because that _can’t_ be possible. Batman _doesn’t_. He-- “Do you?”

Batman cocks his head to the side, in a way that reminds Clark -alarmingly- of Krypto. “Would it matter?” he asks. “If I did want to?”

 _Would it_ ** _matter._** Jesus.

“ _Yes._ ”

Batman walks up to him, along the edge of the building’s rooftop, an inch away from a hundred foot drop, easy as breathing, until they’re close, so close he can feel warmth bleed off of him, into the chill of the night, can taste Kevlar and leather and smoke, the salt of his skin, and the strange double-echo of Batman’s heartbeat and the biofeedback system, running over each other.

“What did _you_ want? Whom did you want?” Batman murmurs, and Clark’s light-headed, his heart in free-fall, and his hand twitches loosely at his side, a great big roar of _want mine_ ** _take_** blazing up his spine, but he says, “I wanted--someone else. I-I’m sorry, I was--confused, the kryptonite, I thought it was--”

“Wayne,” Batman interrupts sharply, poisonous, like he hates the word, like he wants to _destroy_ the name. “But you didn’t fuck your airhead little boyfriend, did you.”

_You fucked me._

“Don’t,” Clark whispers quietly, impotent with despair and heartache, and everything in him wants to go back to before, wants to beg Batman’s forgiveness, wants to demand Bruce’s lov-- _loyalty._ “Don’t--Whatever you think of him, please, I know Bruce, he’s a good man, he’s--”

“A bloody idiot,” Batman rasps, and Clark flinches back at the hatred seething there. “But this is not about him.”

“Tell me,” Clark says finally. “Tell me what to do. Tell me if there is a way I can fix this.”

And Batman turns, and--steps off the ledge.

There’s a split-second, where Clark can’t move, can’t breathe, while a high, pure note of denial screams right through his bones, before a grappling hook shoots upwards, and Batman swings cleanly through an open window. Clark follows him, into a darkened penthouse bedroom, the bed pristinely made, the air faintly scented with jasmine and bergamot. A tea service sits in one corner, delicate and unobtrusive. The teapot is still warm.

Batman’s waiting for him, an air of impatience around him, something volatile in the hard line of his mouth.

“What is this?”

“An experiment,” Batman replies, unfathomable as ever, and then strides up to Clark, presses a thumb just beneath his jaw, the perfect pressure point for an air choke, and it's not so much the absence of oxygen as sheer surprise that makes Clark gasp. In that second, Batman has already moved, sealed his open mouth over Clark’s, tongue delving into his with reckless, violent hunger. Clark doesn't know how to respond, hands clenching and opening at his sides, and Batman's doing something terrible -wonderful- with his tongue, dragging perfectly along his, and, oh god--Clark knows, on an intellectual level, that this is supposed to be some kind of punishment, that this is not something he’s supposed to enjoy --an experiment, Batman had said, something done _to_ him, not _with_ him-- but he can't help his response, can't help the groan when Batman bites his lips, kisses softly against the not-bruise, traces the shape of his lips with his tongue and sucks it hungrily into his mouth, delicate, ruthless. There are sirens going off in his head, but Clark's dizzy from whiplash, hands shaking when they wrap carefully around his waist, a trembling curse on his tongue when Batman wedges his thigh right up against Clark’s hardening cock, digs his fingers into Clark’s ass, rolling his hips perfectly, fuck, _fuck._

  
  


He pulls back with an effort that feels Herculean. “Batman, what--” But Batman’s hands are already tugging, peeling off Clark’s uniform pants with a hard jerk, one hand wrapping aroundClark’s hard leaking cock, leather-gloved and slick, and Clark's question turns into a shuddering moan, grip braced on Batman’s shoulders, fisted into his cape.

“Off,” he murmurs against Clark’s jaw, tapping his shoulder, and Clark complies quietly, waits naked while Batman _looks_ at him, and then lets himself sink into the warm, wet onslaught of his mouth.

“You wanted to fuck me?” Batman asks, and there's a note there that sounds… challenging, jesus christ. “Fine. Fuck me.”

There must have been some kind of awful expression on his face, because-- alarm, that's what Clark was feeling, what he imagined people felt in a speeding car at the edge of a cliff, a real ten-fire red-alert all-hands-to-battlestations kind of alarm.

“What,” Batman snapped.

“I don't--I don't even know your _name,_ ” Clark whispered, but that wasn't it, that wasn't the reason.

“You don't need to,” came the acidic reply, and he began to turn, began to unsnap the belt, so Clark used his strength, for the first time tonight, used it to clamp down on Batman’s wrist, around the shock-pads of the gauntlets.

“What. Are. You. Doing.”

“I--I cant,” Clark whispered, and he’d almost forgotten how close they were standing, because all Batman had to do was shift his thigh, press the rock-hard line of muscle and bone right up against his naked, leaking cock. Clark stiffened, shut husbeyes, and heard Batman whisper, “I don't think that's the problem,” while guilt swirled like an ocean at storm in his stomach.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? The problem was how badly Clark _wanted._

“You don't understand?” he gritted out, while Batman slid cool, leather-clad fingers down his sides, let Clark rock into the hollow of his hip, into that V scored in the Batsuit, where his waist narrowed into his groin, god, and Clark swallowed down his moan when Batman wrapped his fingers around Clark’s cock against, jacking him off, slow, steady.

“Make me understand,” Batman murmured, and wasn't that clever, Clark thought muggily. Wasn't that clever: getting him so worked up, he could barely think straight, barely form a coherent idea over the thought of Batman’s hands on his body, bending him over something, anything, putting his mouth all over him, licking him open, until he was desperate for it, until he was right on the edge and--

“I shouldn't,” he said, and Batman almost stilled. He didn't and then Clark continued, “I shouldn't, don't you get it? I l-love him, I fell in love with him, a-and, it's--there's never--what it's like, for me, with him, is--”

“Some rich boy rode your cock into the next century, yes, we all get it--”

“No,” Clark cuts in harshly, “shut up, that's not--” and that’s probably the worst tack to take. Clark sighs, and searches for the right words. “There's more to him, than that. He’s different--shut up, I know, ‘trite,’ but he _is._ He’s hurting and he’s still-- _good_ and kind and--you don't understand, alright, with me, I was _born_ with my powers, I was born with everything I needed to become Superman,” and Clark locks both of Batman’s wrists in his hands and forces him to meet his eyes.

“I had my parents, and a childhood, and kindness and decency and--he had _none_ of that, it was all torn away from him, it should have _destroyed_ him, it should have made him a _monster,_ and instead, he’s--he’s the kind of person who donates in secret to earthquake relief funds, who worries about his kids too much, who devotes all his waking hours to saving his city. Do you understand why that’s--extraordinary? When you're like me, it's easy to be a hero.” Clark shut his eyes. “When you're like Bruce Wayne, you make that choice. Everyday. Over and over again.”

Batman is silent: profoundly, glaringly silent.

“I’m sorry,” Clark whispers and opens his eyes. Batman is unreadable, but his heartbeat is… Frenetic, even over he biofeedback, beating a tattoo against his ribs. Why…? “Do you understand,” he continues carefully, “why I shouldn't-- When you love someone, like that, that's it. That should be _it._ And then you come along, and--it's just like that, just as bad, the way I--am, with you, and it's like--” Clark laughs, because the other thing isn't really an option. “Like I’m cursed or something, like there’s something fundamentally _wrong_ with me, do you understand, like I’m-- _broken,_ I don't know, because I fell in love with him, and it turns out he didn't give a shit about me, which--I can't hold that against him, I never told him how I-- god, and you're my best friend, and I fucking destroyed that too. So you tell me what the fuck good are all my superpowers then, Batman, you tell me that.”

It's so quiet, then, for such a long time, just the sound of their breathing and their crashing, furious heartbeats.

“You thought you cheated,” Batman says, in a thready whisper, all warped by the modulator. “That's why you--broke up, because you thought you owed a measure of--of loyalty, to someone you loved…”

“Love,” Clark corrects automatically, and then frowns.

There is a whisper, brushing at his thoughts, and it feels like it's been there for so long, like a stray shadow caught in the corner of his eye, there but not, a realization he’s been pushing away…

“I _did_ cheat,” he says slowly, and watches, feeling like he’s very very far away, watching from the edge of the solar system, while Batman works a clasp under his chin, hears a soft hiss as the modulator is peeled off.

“No,” says a terribly familiar voice, and now there are fingers working under the edge of the cowl, pushing it back, over winter blue eyes, and a dark mess of hair. “Kal, you didn't,” and there is an ocean wave, a tsunami roaring in his ears, except no, that's the sound of his own bloodstream, and Clark barely hears himself whisper, hushed, desperate, yearning, the prayer of a man lost in a desert, of Jonah in the belly of the beast, because he’s smiling, he’s smiling at Clark and his eyes are soft, and he looks like he _wants,_ and Clark holds him, holds onto him, cups his jaw, and says, “ _Bruce_.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. This has been incredibly fun to write, and all your lovely comments are pretty much the only reason I kept writing, so, like, I owe you all, I really do.
> 
> The whole fic was jumpstarted by a single scene that I never managed to use in the fic, but I think it establishes what might've happened between this chapter and the last, if the fic had gone a very, _very_ different way.
>
>> “No,” Bruce interjects violently, “that's _not--_ It doesn't matter, goddammit, if I can't-- I’m a danger to him--to the team. I’m clouding his judgement, so the thing to do here is for me to _leave,_ to eliminate the cause of the problem, not to entangle myself even _more_ in whatever the hell is going on--”   
>  “Bruce,” Dick says very very gently, “you giant emotionally-stunted goober. That's--what’s happened to him, _and_ to you--that’s called falling in _love_.”
> 
> hit kudos if you liked it.  
> come say hi on tumblr [@pasdecoeur](http://pasdecoeur.tumblr.com).


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